A Moms Mabley doc, a sci-fi parody and more at the Black Harvest Film Fest

August 01, 2013|Nina Metz | Chicago Closeup

Rodney Harvey (left), actor/director William Cochran (middle), and David Cowan (right) in the local feature ENGLEWOOD (THE GROWING PAINS IN CHICAGO), playing in the 18th Annual Black Harvest Film Festival in 2012.

A highlight of this year's Black Harvest Film Festival (which begins this weekend and continues throughout the month) will likely be an early look at one of the most anticipated documentaries of the year: "Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley."

A long-overdue excavation of Mabley's influential comedy albums and TV appearances on "Playboy After Dark," "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" and more, the doc is primarily focused on her standup material as opposed to her life off-stage. (Mabley, who died in 1975, was openly gay — a wonderfully subversive fact considering the times.) With her trademark look (housecoat, floppy hat, dentures noticably absent) and unvarnished truth-telling, she was an influence on everyone from Bill Cosby to Joan Rivers to Eddie Murphy.

Debuting on HBO in November, the doc will close out the fest Aug. 29 (admission is free). HBO did not make screeners available so I can't speak to the quality of the film, which first played at the Tribeca Film Festival in the spring, where Goldberg told the audience: "She looked the way she looked, and she made everyone deal with it." Sounds revolutionary even in 2013.

Here's a look at other films playing at Black Harvest over the next several weeks, many of which include post-show discussions with the director.

"For the Cause"(Aug. 3, 8)

Saddled with forgettable dialogue, awkward editing and a narrative that takes too much time revealing itself, this legal drama from Chicago native and Northwestern grad Katherine Nero centers on a young attorney who agrees to defend her estranged father on a murder charge. Though the film struggles to find its footing, the jailhouse scenes between father and daughter (Eugene Parker and Charlette Speigner) feel credibly tense and full of momentum. Director Katherine Nero will be at both screenings.

"In Our Heads About Our Hair"(Aug. 4, 7)

It was only four years ago that Chris Rock made "Good Hair," a documentary about the complicated relationship black women have with their hair. Filmmaker Hemamset Angaza covers much of the same ground with less polish. But in small, meaningful ways he goes where Rock didn't, talking with TV journalist Melba Tolliver, who wore her hair in a short Afro to cover Tricia Nixon's wedding at the White House in 1971 — much to the surprise and (ultimately pointless) displeasure of her bosses.

More than three decades later, a representative from Glamour magazine gave a speech in 2007 decrying Afros and dreadlocks in professional environments. (I wish Angaza had delved further into this and talked with those in hiring positions.) Most effectively, he follows a young woman who decides to cut her hair and wear it in its natural state after years of straightening it with chemicals. She looks in the mirror afterwards in a state of shock. "I don't hate it," she says eventually. When she gets home, her husband lets out a surprised laugh and says to the camera: "I've been telling her for the longest time that she should go natural."

"In Search of the Black Knight"(Aug. 9, 10)

In his documentary with a rom-com sensibility, filmmaker Tamarat Makonnen poses a series of relationship questions to black men and women, the most provocative of which zeroes in on complex notions of black masculinity: "I hear women say things like they're looking for a man who's business-minded and can handle himself in the board room, but also has some thug in him," he asks "Now, is that really a realistic goal in a man?" The responses (which run the gamut) are knotty and fascinating. Makonnen cites statistics from the New York Times that put 70 percent of black women in the "single" column (the highest percentage, when broken down by race) and sets out to figure out why. The doc has a winking approach, similar to 2012's "Think Like a Man" (based on the Steve Harvey book of the same name) but with a far less prescriptive approach to the battle of the sexes. Director Tamarat Makonnen will be at both screenings.

"Destination: Planet Negro!"(Aug. 23, 27)

A satiric twist on sci-fi B-movies of old, Kevin Willmott's comedy sends three 1930s-era black adventurers — a professor, his brilliant scientist daughter and a swaggering young pilot named Race Johnson — on a rocket ship to Mars: "We've come to the conclusion that the only solution for colored people is to leave the planet!" (The ship is fueled by a radioactive peanut and sweet potato concoction courtesy of George Washington Carver, who has some hilarious gripes about his legacy.) Also on board is a robot (think "Lost in Space") with a backwoods accent — a perfectly ridiculous character that shouldn't be as funny as he is.